More than you can handle
by Steel Hawk
Summary: Fighters get caught in a city a have to fight their way out
1. Chapter 1-Dent Ioss fights a Mad Cat

More then you can handle  
  
  
  
Glancing down at his sensors, Dent Ioss saw six more enemy blips coming from the edge of the city. "Great," he muttered "Just what we need."  
  
After a failed assault on the Draconis planet of Scendahar he and his battalion had suffered heavy losses when they walked straight into an ambush when they were trying to get to their dropships. Now they were forced to go through the capital to get off the planet. The problem was that now they had entered the city they had to get through to the other side and their unit had been broken up. The Draconis mechs' were breaking up the annihilating the mechs one by one.  
  
The screaming of alarms woke Dent from his trance a moment before a wall of LRMs hit him from the right. His AMS managed to cut down half of them before they rocked into his right torso, blowing armour into scrap the fell to litter the ground. Shaking the explosions off, Dent turned his 60 Tonne Argus round to face the threat. Standing about 6 blocks away, with missile racks still smoking, was a Mad Cat. The fearsome clan 'mech was well know on the battle field for holding its own against 'mechs many times its own weight. Packing LRM packs, large lasers, medium pulse lasers, medium lasers and machine gun arrays the Mad Cat was the workhorse of the clan armies, able to engage at any range. Dent started running down a side street to get closer to his enemy. His Argus, apart from having Inner Sphere technology was specifically configured by Dent for his fighting style. It packed the standard autocannons, a MRM pack instead of the LRMs and a large pulse laser instead of the mediums the standard config. had. This meant that he couldn't engage from the same distances the Mad Cat could.  
  
Coming from round the side street Dent opened up the throttle to close the distance between them. Bringing his autocannons to bare, he fired, the recoil twisting his torso away from the enemy mech. The depleted uranium slugs smashed into the Mad Cat, hitting bellow the cockpit shaking it furiously. Dent smiled. That would let the Draconis pilot know that he was facing a pilot that was not daunted by the Mad Cat's fearsome figure. In return, the air between the two mechs became alive with machine gun bullets. Most of them missed due to the hammering it took and slammed into buildings all around, smashing glass and ferrocrete alike. The slugs that did hit Dent's Argus bounced harmlessly off. Machine guns were more suited to cutting down infantry or exploiting breaches in armour than destroying the actual 'mech. Dent let go with his MRMs and large pulse laser. The laser cut a deep scar along the right leg while the medium range missiles impacted all over the Draconis mech shaking it even more. The Mad Cat recovered from the damage and brought all his weapons to bare on Dent's Argus. The air between the two mechs was filled with charged energy as large lasers, medium lasers and medium pulse lasers cut into the Argus. The pulse lasers cut into its left torso, the mediums slagged some of the armour over the MRM launcher meaning Dent wouldn't be able to fire about a quarter of his missiles after a quick glance at his damage schematics. Reaching up, Dent flicked a switch above him to compensate for this. Then the large lasers hit. Both ripped deep into Dent's Argus' hip on the left side, causing melted armour to drip to the ground in puddles. An alarm started flashing straight away. Checking his schematics again, Dent realised that his left hip actuator was frozen, meaning that his Argus' movement was severely reduced. Dent also realised he had to finish it straight away or he would be destroyed because he could hardly move. Training his targeting reticule over the Mad Cat's cockpit, he linked all his weapons together for an alpha-strike. The MRM's impacted all over the Draconis' mech, vaporising armour. The large pulse tracked down from the left missile rack, to the 'head' of the mech. The autocannons, on the other hand, were directly on target. The slugs smashes straight through the cockpit, killing the pilot and totally destroying all the equipment used to control mechs. Without the 'brain' of the mech, the lifeless hull fell to the ground in a heap.  
  
Dent gasped as a huge wave of heat rushed over him from firing all his weapons together. It would take a little while for his heat sinks to dissipate all the heat. Dent also wondered how he'd get to the dropships in time now that his leg was damaged but all these worries were forgotten and in place was a new one as he looked out his cockpit. Coming down the main street towards Dent was an Atlas. 


	2. Chapter 2-Merc Ti'Tsang joins the fun

A very sincere felling of dread crept up on Dent Ioss as he double checked to make sure the Atlas was an enemy even though he knew there were no Atlases (is that spelt right???) used in their assault. Dent new he wouldn't survive for more than a few volleys in his present state, not that he would last long anyway but at least if he wasn't damaged he could still run away.  
  
Dent turned his Argus towards the on coming mech ready to face his destiny. Dent out of habit gave a once over of his damage display, weapon status and radar and noticed a flicker on his radar but it disappeared just as soon as it appeared. With all the buildings around it was common knowledge around all fighters that mechs could come up to 250 meters away and not be spotted on the radar and the 'ghost' mechs would appear from time to time.  
  
Looking back at the Atlas, Dent breathed out to try and calm himself for what would happen next. The Atlas raised its arms and the barrels of the lasers began to hum, as they were charged, ready to fire. Dent took what he thought would be his last breath.  
  
But the devastating rain of energy and ballistics never came. The Atlas he become preoccupied by something else. Looking down the street Dent saw movement of some kind but couldn't tell what it was that was moving. He figured it must be something very powerful if it was enough to draw the Atlas away from making such an easy kill. That or the pilot was just as curious as Dent was on what it was down there.  
  
Then as it came closer Dent realised what the shape was. It was a Ti'Tsang, but none like any that Dent had seen before. This variant carried two double-edged axes, one in each hand, an LBX-20 underslung on each arm, and a Streak SRM pack over its left torso. As it came into the light of a nearby building, Dent found out why neither him, nor the Atlas pilot had detected the Ti'Tsang.  
  
It had a radar dish on its head and an antenna that came up from behind it and was secured to its shoulder so it wouldn't get in the way during combat. Dent recognised this configuration as that of an Angel EMC Suite. As far as he knew these were very hard to come by which meant that this Ti'Tsang was either part of a very well outfitted army or a very well paid mercenary. The Angel EMC Suite, besides doing all that a Guardian does, also counteracts probes, Streak missiles and Clan targeting computers. But apart from that there was also one other huge reason why they hadn't even seen it. Its colour scheme was completely black. Even the cockpit was darkened, from the lack of running lights showed.  
  
A voice crackled into existence over the com. "This is Sargent Alex Tan of the Black Lancers mercenary unit. I suggest, Dent that you get going for your dropship, its about four clicks away and with your messed up leg that will take you some time. I will provide escort for you."  
  
"But ….."  
  
"There is no time for questions Cornel Ioss. Just get going"  
  
Giving the Atlas a glance Dent could see that the pilot wasn't happy about this arrangement but there didn't seem to be much of a choice. Turn his Argus away from the Atlas and Ti'Tsang, Dent began his struggle back to the dropship.  
  
"Listen warrior," the Atlas pilot began, "I don't know who you are or what your doing here but you're disrupting something that was between me and the guy over there" The Atlas' arm pointed in the general direction of Dent's Argus.  
  
"Well that's such a pity because now it's between you and me friend." The mercenary said.  
  
1 "I ain't you're friend merc' scum." Scowled the Atlas pilot  
  
"Gee that's just too bad then."  
  
With that the Ti'Tsang launched a salvo of it's SSRMs at the Atlas, exploding over the chest of the massive war machine. The damage was superficial the BattleMech but both the explosions and the exhaust from the missiles covered the Ti'Tsangs approach to the Draconis pilot. When he was about 10 meters from the Atlas, Alex lit up his jump jets, on a path that would take him over the head of the other mech.  
  
As he passed over the Atlas the deadly twin double edged axes came into play, each slicing off an arm of the Atlas, both falling do the ground completely useless. As soon as it landed, the Ti'Tsang spun as fast as it could, while the Draconis pilot still was trying to figure out what had happened. Rising both its arms so the LBX-20s were pointed at the back of the Atlas, Alex smiled and said more to himself than to the Atlas pilot "We mercs are definitely not scum."  
  
Both LBX-20s went off, spraying depleted uranium slugs into the weakest part of any mech, the back. As the rounds drove through the armour the secondary ammunition went off, spraying more depleted uranium into the bowls of the Atlas.  
  
Shuddering from the massive gyro that held the mech upright destroying its self, the Atlas took a step then smashed to the ground, pieces flying all around.  
  
Gazing down from the safety of his cockpit, Alex thought he saw a shinny red liquid seep from the head of the Atlas. 


End file.
